Get your Greek on!

 Week 9  (March 3, 2010)

Special contributing writer: Geoffrey Gonzalez with added commentary by me, Mayra Sustaita

I felt like making something a little on the healthy side tonight.  And when I think of healthy, I think Greek.  I think it has to do with all the veggies and the flat bread! I decided to make Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce and a traditional Greek Salad. 

I think I went overboard with all the veggies I bought, cause I ended up cutting the salad recipe in half. (Comments: Understatement! Geoff was about to buy like 10 cucumbers and 10 tomatoes. When we were checking out at the grocery store I was alarmed at how many cucumbers were on the conveyor belt, I instantly advised him to halve the recipe. He was a little bit upset about this, but there is no way we could eat all those cucumbers in one week, let alone one night!) The salad consisted of tomatoes, English cucumbers, onions, parsley, feta, kalamata olives and oregano.  Obviously I don't eat cheese and Mayra doesn't eat olives, so I basically sprinkled those ingredients on after.  The salad went pretty smoothly since all the preparation was just chopping. 

But for the chicken dish (which actually were skewers), all I did was marinate the chicken for about 20 minutes in the fridge with some lemon juice, salt/pepper, olive oil, garlic  and oregano.  So easy.  And while it marinated, that's when I prepared the salad.  (Comments: I liked the chicken, it definitely tasted "healthy" but it could have used a little more flavor or marinating)

Once the chicken was finished marinating, I put them on the skewers, along with more cucumbers, and plopped them right on the trusty George Foreman grill. (Comments: Easily the most used appliance in our kitchen. Geoff never wants to use it though because he hates washing it. Surprised he pulled it out for his cooking night.) Easy peasy. The finishing touch was making a yogurt sauce for Mayra which yes, you guessed it, had more cucumbers!  I don't like yogurt sauce so I bought some hummus for myself. (Comments: The yogurt sauce was yummy! Probably my favorite thing of the night!)

Fun facts about cucumbers:

• Cucumber is the best natural diuretic known, secreting and promoting the flow of urine. (Comments: Neat!)
  

• Helps in kidney and urinary bladder disease. (Comments: probably due to its high water content)
  

• The high mineral content of this vegetable also helps to prevent splitting of nails of the fingers and toes. (Comments: Useful info!)
  

• To reduce heartburn or sooth acid stomach, drink fresh cucumber juice. (yuck!) (Comments: I second that yuck! I don't even like cucumber in my water!)
  

Oh, I forgot to mention that all the while I was preparing the dinner, I had some delicious potato flat bread baking in the oven.  Just bought this at Whole Paycheck Foods as some needed carbs for the dinner.  It would have been a really light and healthier dinner without it, but since I eat like I weigh 300lbs I would have been starving like 10 minutes later.  So this hit the spot.

This dinner was actually really tasty and easy.  My reco's:  buy 1 pound of chicken instead of the 1/2 it calls for. And cut the salad recipe in half if it's just for 2.  This dinner would have paired great with some wine like some Reisling, but alas, I'll never know what that's like until Easter :)

(Comments: Our rating for tonights dinner: 8.5. Mayra: 8, Geoffrey: 9)

Enjoy!

geo the mexican greek